Fast Acting Doors

As always, I must defer to the men and women who actually flew the aircraft, as in my earlier post on the U-2.  But first, I can’t resist an intro.  The F-104, another Kelly Johnson masterpiece of engineering, is arguably the most beautiful and elegant jet fighter ever built.  I wasn’t fortunate enough to ever get a ride in the 2-seat trainer, and the Zipper was acquired by USAF in only very small numbers.  Of the approximately 2,500 built by Lockheeed, most were sold to European air forces, particularly to the Luftwaffe and to the Italian air force. 

My only real F-104 experience (aside from watching it fly in a airshow) came from personally overhearing, in 1980, a conversation between a visiting Luftwaffe pilot and a resident F-16 pilot at Luke Air Force Base outside Phoenix.  The German, flying a 1950s-era relic, said to the young American flying the newest fighter in the free world:  “In a fight, I think I would take you.  Remember my ceiling is 80,000 feet.”  Now, with my notes in parentheses, here is “Ruminations on the F-104” by “Walt BJ:”

But my first ride in the F-104 - hey, I’d been on test hop orders since 1960 and was used to checking gauges on the roll! But after releasing the brakes on the -104B I’d managed to check 3 of the 5 gauges one checks after the burner light and my IP (instructor pilot) said quietly ‘Rotate!’. We were nearing 180 KIAS (knots, indicated airspeed)!  If you don’t get the (landing) gear handle up as the aircraft breaks ground at 186 you could trap the main gear doors open. No big deal; just nose up to slow below 250 KIAS and cycle the gear. No blow except to one’s pride.

The airplane was extremely reliable. The radar cold be changed in 20 minutes; the engine in 2 hours. Every comm/electronic box could be changed at the end of the runway in the quick check area in matter of a few minutes - and was. Our QC crew had spare boxes in their van and saved many a sortie.

ADC (Air Defense Command) had an exercise where they put up targets in a racetrack and tested the unit on how many sorties it could crank out. One afternoon we put 60 sorties up in three hours. The pilots were RTB’ing (returning to base) in AB (afterburner) and the ground crews were giving us 15 minute turnarounds!

The F-104 is the ONLY airplane I ever heard of where the squadron dog would exceed all the Flight Manual red line limits - 750KIAS, M2.0 and 100C engine inlet temp, and the SLOW light which came on at 121C in the generator cooling air duct. The bird originally had the GE J79-3B engine, and by the time I got to fly it that engine was getting worn out. The engine frames were so warped now that hot air leaks would set off the AFT OVERHEAT light if one got too slow at altitude (generally under 315 KIAS or so). Finally a fine officer and gentleman Col (now Bgen, ret) Dave Rippetoe got us the J79-19 engine. This is the same engine that is in the F104S and a variant of the F-4E engine. The replacement was simple enough so that the majority were installed in the squadron.

The -3B gave us 9600 lbs in military (an engine power setting) and 14000 in AB - when it was new, that is. The -19 gave us 12850 in military and 18900 in AB, later reduced for peacetime longevity to 11870/17500. Suffice to say the increase in performance was outstanding. The old bird would take about 4 minutes to get to mach 2 from .9, covering about 100 miles and using about all the fuel one could spare. The new bird took 1 minute 45 seconds, 27 miles, and 1000 pounds of fuel!

We normally flew 1:20 (One hour and 20 minutes) sorties clean (no external fuel tanks); now we could fly 1:30. The bird now cruised at 35000 (feet) at 315 KIAS at 2700PPH (fuel consumption in pounds per hour) . Two reasons for greater efficiency, a new nozzle and a higher compression ratio in the compressor. With 2 x 165 gallon tip tanks we could now go HST-Big SpringTX, BGS to Palmdale. 2 hop XC (cross country) from FL to CA.

We intercepted U-2 fairly often on their training flights, usually above 60000. Of course we had to wear p-suits (pressure suits). Fuel was our limitation on the old bird; we couldn’t afford to wait more than about 5 minutes if he was behind on his ETA. But with the new bird! I was fortunate enough to fly the first U-2 mission and during pre-brief the controller at MOADS and I talked it over. Of course he had nothing in his computer about the bird’s new performance. I asked to be rolled out 35 miles behind the U-2 at .9 mach at 35000. He did just that. I selected full AB and started accelerating. As the bird passed 1.4 I started a gentle climb. At something like 18 miles (on a 20 nm scope) I saw his blip on our ‘spinscan’ ASG14 radar. I glanced at the gauges and saw we were 1.8 M passing 58000!

I don’t recall what the fuel gauge read but it was nothing to worry about. Completed the intercept and peeled off for home with about 2400 pounds of fuel left! In the old bird if we had 1200 left then we were in fat city! Gs. Yeah, just about everybody could out turn an F-104 in the usual subsonic dogfight area. But the only birds that gave us a hard time - with the old engine! - were the F-106 and the F-8. The secret was never slowing down and using the vertical to the max. We had a good gun and sight combo and practiced (some of us) deflection shooting out to 3500-4000 feet. We got to where we could hit the (towed aerial gun target) dart (5x12 feet) about 85% of the time at ranges exceeding 2500 feet using the radar ranging gun sight. The plan was to force the bogey into a turn and then phase our attacks so one bird was always threatening the bogey. This is the TAC lead wingman switch concept. We thought of it and flew it as ‘fluid four’ without the wingmen, covering each other and the responsibilities switching according to the fight. Our unit sent people up to Tyndall to fight the F106s when they were trying to sell the 106 as a deployable air superiority team. The -19 (new engine) F-104 waxed the 6. Later some of the guys (not me, sob - I was going to the F-4 now) went out to Edwards to fly against some of the oppo birds. later while working for Air Florida I talked to their 737 chief pilot. He was flying a very capable oppo bird against the USAF planes as was curving in behind what he thought was a lone F-4 at about 25000. All of a sudden he saw a -104 pull up vertical off the F4s wing - and knew he was in trouble!

The -19 -104 would go supersonic - M1.05 - in true level flight at 25000 in military power. It could maintain .97 on the deck in mil. The fastest I’ve had one on the deck was 750, the redline. I do know one pilot who let it run out to 825. He was at that time a bachelor and immortal. It’s maximum was far beyond 2.0 at altitude. The most I’ve heard of is 2.4 (same bachelor) which is above the aluminum one-time limit. (2.2 for 5 minutes) I have personally flown the aircraft in a zoom climb high enough so the altimeter stopped turning at around 87000. We were still going up in a 50 degree climb. I suppose the pressure differential was too low to overcome the friction in the gears driving the needles. I know the bird will cruise at 73000 at M2.0; Paul Da San Martineo and I RTB’d from Tyndall to Homestead that way. It certainly impressed Miami Center; I remember the controller’s answer when we called “Level, Flight Level 730” (73,000 feet.). “Roger, and you weren’t lying about your true airspeed either!” (We’d filed a TAS of 1150 kts)

The bird could, on an 85F day from sea level, at combat weight and configuration, go through 45,000 (feet, altitude) in 90 seconds after brake release. This was a bird right off the line with no tweaking.

What always struck me about the aircraft was the way it could accelerate in a zero-G bunt. It seemed like it could jump from 250 to 550 in about 20 seconds. It was certainly fast enough so one had to hold the pitch trim button forward and yet still apply pressure to maintain zero-G for the unloaded accel.

Fighting the bird entailed two tactics; the deep six zoom attack with the AIM-9B and the gun pass followed by a vertical zoom and reattack at 600+. Get a radar lock-on and try for a high angle deflection shot on the planform of the bogey. The instant the gunsight was saturated - could no longer track - quarter roll wings level and zoom vertical again.

It was not uncommon to belly up through 50000 on the re-attack. NO ONE could follow us in these maneuvers. Certainly not an F-4. An F-15 could, but they weren’t around yet. After the second pass the F-4 was all out of airspeed. The 6 was in the same boat; it lost speed fast when it started pulling G. We could spiral climb away from them and when they paid off split-ess back onto their tail.

The F-104 was sort of like owning the sharpest knife in the world. It was an honest airplane; you knew what was going on all the time. but like using a sharp knife, you better not make any mistakes. It did not suffer fools at all. The engine-out landing pattern was wild; 15,000 (feet of altitude) and 260 (knots) over the runway and one turn, 240 KIAS over the (runway) threshold. Drop the gear by the emergency release during the (landing) flare! Rate of descent stabilized with gear down, engine off, at 240KIAS was about 11,000 FPM (feet per minute – or, loss of 2 miles of altitude each minute)  No slack there. The bird got a bad rep during its infancy - in the USAF about a third of them were lost to engine failure before GE got the bugs out of it. In the Luftwaffe a lot of accidents were due to a combination of green pilots, poor maintenance and lousy (normal) European wx (weather). With 4 tanks - fairly common LW configuration - the liftoff speed is around 215 KIAS. On an 8000 foot runway there is NO slack at all.

Range. Carrying one bomb (guess what kind) with 4 tanks an F-104 will go about half again as far as an F-4 on a low-low-low sortie. And it will do it faster, too.

Bomb load. The TAC version can carry four but why would one want to mess up an air superiority fighter with bombs?

Deployability. The Zipper was designed before the perceived need for IFR (all weather, day/night or “instrument flight rules”). Because of the way it’s built it can be disassembled and loaded on a C-141 and flown to wherever you want it. Wings off and it sits on its gear. Tail off, elevator off rudder, load it on board. Unload it at destination and reassemble it. Four bolts hold the after section on, five bolts for each wing. The Lancer could have incorporated a retractable probe and with its afterburning turbofan would have deployed nicely.

Summary. I amassed 2000 hours in the F-4D/E and grew to like it for what it could do. But love it? No way. My love was first the (F-86) Sabre and then the (F-104) Zipper. Both were true pilot’s aircraft. The Sabre handled like it was part of you; the Zipper only came alive above 450 KIAS. But at 600 it started to hum, and at 700 … oh, baby!

Hope you enjoyed this - my paean to the Lockheed F-104A and to (“Skunk Works designer) Kelly Johnson and his team!